Possessive pronouns: le mien, le tien

Le mien (mine), le tien (yours), le nôtre (ours): French possessive pronouns replace a possessive and its noun. They always carry an article, and they agree with the thing owned, never with the owner.

The forms at a glance

Read across a row for one owner. The article and the ending copy the noun being replaced.

Nôtre, vôtre and leur never change for gender: only the article does, and each has one plural for both genders.

• Ton jardin ou le nôtre ? - Your garden or ours?
• Ta maison ou la nôtre ? - Your house or ours?
• Mes clés et les leurs - My keys and theirs

These pronouns stand alone. In front of a noun you need the possessive adjectives mon, ma, mes from French possessive adjectives.

Agreement: the thing owned, not the owner

English his and hers tell you about the owner. French tells you about the thing: the noun's gender and number decide the form, whoever owns it.

• C'est ta voiture ? - Oui, c'est la mienne. - Is it your car? Yes, it's mine. (said by a man or a woman)
• Mes parents vont bien. Et les tiens ? - My parents are well. And yours?

So le sien can mean his, hers or its. The form follows the noun:

1234

1. 1elle
2. 2le sien
3. 3la sienne
4. 4le sien

Elle (she) owns all three. Her dog is le sien (le chien), her car la sienne (la voiture), her umbrella le sien (le parapluie). The owner is a woman every time; only the thing decides.

Le nôtre or notre?

The adjective sits in front of a noun and has no accent. The pronoun stands alone and carries a circumflex.

• Votre jardin est plus grand que le nôtre. - Your garden is bigger than ours.
• Nos enfants jouent avec les vôtres. - Our children are playing with yours.

In standard French the accent changes the sound too: nôtre has the closed o of eau, notre the open o of porte. Without the circumflex, le notre is a spelling mistake, not a variant.